This space is positively stacked against any solo or small group dev.
The way you deal with that is, you pick a credible crypto project with traction and build on top of it.
The world badly needs a GPG UX that ordinary people can use without thinking about it. Bonus: nobody knows what that UX is! It's an open problem! And you can tackle it without getting anyone killed, because the GPG/PGP team has spent decades getting the "might get someone killed" problems addressed.